Editor’s note: Bearing Drift is grateful to Dr. Bob Holsworth for permission to share his daily Virginia coronavirus updates. For more, follow him on Facebook [1].
1. Hospitalizations Moderately Down, Deaths Moderately Up
In my last report on Tuesday, there were 1253 COVID-19 patients in hospitals, today the Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association reported 1233. Last week at this time there were 1299 COVID-19 patients in hospitals.
The number of patients in ICUs and on ventilators have remained relatively steady with a slight downward trend. One week ago, there were 268 patients in ICUs, today 260; there were 150 patients on ventilators 7 days ago, today 142.
There were 66 reported deaths in the last 7 days, up moderately from the 53 deaths reported in the previous week.
2. Confirmed Cases Moderately Declining
There were 737, 863, and 978 confirmed cases the last 3 days. The number of confirmed cases is also moderately declining as this is the first week in over a month where we haven’t seen at least one day with more than 1,000 confirmed cases and there is a clear reduction in the 7-day average.
The 7-day positivity rate has also continued to move downward, declining to 6.6%.
The surge that had been seen in Hampton Roads has now moderated. Cases in the other 2 major metros – NOVA and RVA – occasionally increase on a day-to-day basis, but have not given evidence of a surge.
3. Can the Trends Continue
The moderate declines in hospitalizations, test positivity and cases are all encouraging. The question is how will this look as most colleges and universities and several K-12 systems reopen.
Two Richmond-based universities — University of Richmond and VCU — already reported cases within the first week of classes and several colleges outside Virginia returned to virtual-only classes after reporting outbreaks among the student body.
It may be possible for Virginia to get its test positivity rate below 5% in the near future. But this is not inevitable – we almost did so a few months ago only to see a spike throughout the state. Let’s see if the progress can hold this time around.